“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “Old Mrs. Wood will be glad enough of another boarder in her big old barn of a house. I only wish she could cram it full, if they were all of the right sort.”
“Yes,” replied the judge; “but, from what you have told me of Barnaby’s performance this evening, I fear there are curious times in store for Mrs. Wood, if not for all Ogleport.”
“Indeed, sir!” exclaimed Bar, “I pledge you my word——”
“There, now,” interrupted the judge; “don’t say that. I’m a dried-up old lawyer myself, but I am not so cruel or so foolish as to expect all the boys to be sixty years old. You won’t do anything bad or mean, I feel sure of that, and you mustn’t lead Val into scrapes; but if you did promise not to have any fun you couldn’t keep it. I don’t want you to try.”
And so Bar’s two “guardians” decided, much to his delight, that he was to be delivered from any further risks of meeting his “uncle” or old Prosper.
CHAPTER XI
WILLING HANDS
An unusually fine-looking man was George Brayton, only his full beard and mustache, and his length and strength of limb, made him seem at least three years older than he really was.
Perhaps Effie Dryer would have been less afraid of him if she had known that he was but twenty-three, hardly more than four years older than herself.